Modern communication systems involve a delicate interplay of network components and associated facilities to reliably provide a host of services (e.g., voice and data services, content delivery, etc.) for a service provider. These systems are vital to business operations, whereby any downtime can impose a significant cost to the service provider. The impact of network failures (even very minor ones lasting only minutes) can be measured in thousands or even millions of dollars. Therefore, customers are acutely aware of problems that arise with such systems and have a vested interest in ensuring that these problems are resolved in a timely manner. Consequently, “trouble ticket” systems have been developed to track problem events that arise in the system, along with the activities being taken to resolve such problems. For example, to obtain the current status of a trouble ticket, a customer may contact a customer service representative or agent of the service provider, as to have the representative access and relay the status of the trouble ticket. Unfortunately, even if status information can be obtained, little meaningful information is provided, as technicians, who are dispatched to address the trouble, do not typically supply sufficient status information.
Further, this situation can be frustrating to customers that do not have any other means of determining whether the problem is in the process of being resolved, and may feel as though the problem is being overlooked by the service provider. However, because a trouble ticketing system is traditionally an internal operations system, access to this such system by the end user or customer is gravely limited to protect against security compromises and/or unnecessarily exposing the internal workings of or information about the service provider. Hence, traditional trouble ticketing systems support little to no interaction directly with the customer.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a trouble ticket system that can provide customers some interaction with the system.